Riyaz Ul Khaliq
SRINAGAR
Seemingly things are changing, at least, this Friday near Jamia Masjid in Old Srinagar. Flags changed hands or hands changed flags but visuals changed after the prayers.
After Friday congregational prayer Nowhatta protests would trigger prime time debates in major Delhi TV channels when they would show Kashmir youth waving Black flags.
The black flag with Kalima Toiba inscribed on it is flag of so-called “The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant” – the ISIL or Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) or Daesh.
And the media showing black flags waiving in Nowhatta area around historic Jamia Masjid painted Kashmiri youth with the same ideology.
ISIS came to fore in 2014 June when it declared “worldwide caliphate”. ISIS was referred to as the “Islamic State” and named Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi as its caliph.
But this Friday it was reverse.
For the first time, the stone pelting protesters at Nowhatta have come out condemning the ISIS for its “double-standards.”
The veiled protesters, who have been routinely protesting on Fridays around Nowhatta, this Friday unfurled anti-Daesh posters taking a dig at the international “terrorist” group for mounting assaults on Masjids and killing innocent Muslims.
Notably, in the recent past, Daesh in its in-house monthly magazine, Dabiq, had threatened to expand to Kashmir. “The Islamic State’s Khorasan wing is committed to expanding to Kashmir to fight the cow-worshipping Hindus and the apostates from factions allied to the idol-worshippers of Pakistan.” The “Kashmir Statement” of so-called Daesh had come under severe criticism from across the ideological divide.
